


At Least Consider Our Romance

by Princess of Geeks (Princess)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alien Technology, Aliens Make Them Do It, Angst, Episode Related, Established Relationship, First Time, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-14
Updated: 2010-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-07 23:38:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Janet and Daniel are trapped by an offworld alien device, with consequences that reverberate in unexpected ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Maximum beta thanks to Paian, JD Junkie and Stultiloquentia, without whom, not.

_do nothing 'til you hear from me  
at least consider our romance  
if you should take the word of others you've heard  
i haven't a chance_

^^^^

The call to scramble to the gate came just as Janet was considering heading to the commissary for lunch. It was Monday, which meant Dee the kitchen chief was cooking, which meant Janet had planned on enjoying an extra large bowl of Dee's excellent minestrone.

Earlier in the day, Daniel's translation skills and thus incidentally the rest of SG-1 had been summoned to assist SG-8 on what had been billed as routine reconnaissance of PXR-919, and Janet had pricked up her ears. But there had been no further word from that planet after the flagship team had left. The rest of the morning passed with no base emergencies or gate activations, incoming or outgoing.

So Janet had the luxury of thinking about soup, as she checked on her inpatients: Major Carsten, recovering from having a broken femur pinned after an offworld accident over the weekend; and two members of SG-12, who had suffered an unfortunate episode of offworld food poisoning but were responding well to rehydration, antibiotics and anti-diarrhea medication; and then she headed for the elevator. She had just punched the button for the commissary level when the sirens fired up and the speakers droned, "Medical team to the gate room."

Instead of her favorite soup for lunch, Janet had to make do with a couple of bites of a power bar, her breath creating frosty clouds as she jogged behind her corpsmen up a rocky slope on 919 to see what the combined bad luck of two teams had resulted in this time. The message had specified stretchers for two and described injuries that sounded like electrical burns, but with mishaps involving alien technology it was sometimes hard to find appropriate analogies.

There was the ruined complex, outlined against the winter sky, and the stone colonnade, but no one had mentioned the purple energy field -- two flat walls were visible to Janet, with presumably a total of four, apparently forming a square, like a room, but glowing. As Janet reached the top of the gentle slope, she decided the purple barriers looked somewhat like a Goa'uld force-shield, but she had no firm idea as to which of several possible civilizations could have designed it. She'd encountered similar barriers made by the Tok'ra, as well, but nothing quite like this. It appeared to be acting exactly like the walls of a room, filling the spaces between the columns, a box partitioning the exact center of the double row of pillars. The colonnade looked Greek, and Janet was sure that if she so much as mentioned her curiosity about the cultural clues to the structure's origin, Daniel would immediately provide more details than she could take in. She smiled as she jogged along the flat hilltop, the going much easier here.

Captain Casey was running to meet them, taking one of the heavy kits from her, and leading the way to the two casualties. Who were both 'inside', apparently. Now she could see, vaguely through the opaque shimmer, someone kneeling, and other someones lying down -- it was hard to be sure how many people were inside. Jack emerged, taking no notice of the purple barrier as he strode through it.

"What happened here, Colonel?" Janet said, as Jack took her other kit. She hesitated.

"It's okay," Jack said, and he took her elbow and eased her through. Color shimmered around her, and she felt a faint buzz, like a very weak electric shock. Like touching a poorly grounded appliance. Jack continued, "This energy wall wasn't here when SG-1 arrived. We triggered it somehow, and Teal'c and Hargrave got zapped."

Janet went to her knees beside Teal'c, who was closest, and yanked off her heavy gloves. There was a raw, red area along the outside of his right calf. His eyes were closed and he was frowning, but he showed no other signs of discomfort, though if he indeed had been burned, he should be experiencing intense pain. Janet glanced over at Major Hargrave, who was gritting his teeth and writhing a little, lying half on his side, trying not to moan while squeezing hard at Captain Padillo's forearm.

"I gave Hargrave a Vicodin," Sam said quietly, easing aside to give Janet room. "Teal'c declined one." Janet turned to the major. Hargrave had a similar but much larger raw area covering his left shoulder and extending along his back. His uniform sleeve had been burned away.

Sam said, "I've got some of these instant ice packs, but those areas were too big for them."

Janet nodded. "Let's get them loaded up," Janet said to her corpsmen, and then spoke gently to Hargrave. "Major, you will feel a substantial sting, but after that you should feel relief from the pain right away.... Burns are definitely what this looks like," she added, aside to Sam, as she pulled a can of antibiotic spray out of the kit that one of the medics had flipped open for her. Hargrave flinched as the spray hit his raw skin. Janet frowned in sympathy.

"There was no warning before it activated," Sam said, getting out a second antibiotic canister and aiming it at Teal'c's leg. "No marks on the floor or the columns, nothing indicating a channel for the field, nothing at all."

Janet sat back as Hargrave was hoisted gently onto a stretcher.

"So, thanks to us, you had to miss the minestrone," Jack observed.

Janet smiled. "I'll get Teal'c to make it up to me somehow."

"Perhaps a deal can be struck. Dee remains in my debt from the last card game tournament," Teal'c said, and his voice was only a little strained despite the pain he presumably was in.

Jack patted him on the shoulder and began helping Sam and the two corpsmen position Teal'c on a second stretcher. Jack claimed the handles at Teal'c's feet, hoisted the stretcher and backed toward the purple wall, then disappeared through it, back out into the cold sunlight, looking over his shoulder as he went. Everyone was moving smartly, doing what needed to be done without further orders. Janet glanced around the enclosure. The floor and low ceiling were bare gray stone. The corner columns were heavily carved. And there was Daniel, who had apparently been hanging back, out of the way of the first-aid work and, now that the casualties were being packed up, was taking a last opportunity to video a column.

"Listen, big guy, I'm telling you, you gotta back off on the doughnuts," Jack was saying.

Janet packed up her kit with the familiarity of long habit, and got to her feet. "Coming, Daniel?"

"Yes," Daniel said, abstractedly. "It just happened so fast; there seem to be instructions or warnings on these columns, but I only noticed them after the field had snapped into place. And the ones to the left outside there are entirely different." He was backing toward her, still looking through the viewfinder of his recorder. Janet stepped to the wall, but instead of passing through it as before, she was bounced back, rebounding into Daniel.

"Ouch," he said, and he made it sound like a question. They exchanged puzzled glances. "That didn't happen before," Daniel said.

He pushed against the wall. His hand didn't go through, but he could make the purple surface visibly bulge outward around his palm. He shoved his recorder in the big front pocket of his vest and pushed with both hands. Janet turned her back and rounded her shoulders and pushed, too. The wall gave, a stretchy surface like a trampoline. But she couldn't push through.

"Well, this is new," Daniel said. Janet rubbed her nose. She'd smacked her face solidly, and if the energy field had been hard like the columns, she might have broken her nose.

"Jack!" Daniel was calling. "We have a problem!"

"Daniel?" came the colonel's voice, from a distance. Daniel had followed Janet's example and was pushing with his back.

Janet put down her kit and punched the wall hard, only to watch her fists repeatedly bounce back. She stretched out her arms to the sides, frustrated. She said, "I just now walked through it. What changed? Is it a one-way entrance now? What did we do to it?"

"What's the holdup, guys?" Jack called, closer, sounding only a little annoyed. "You letting him stay to take some more pictures, Doc? Better not to spoil him like that."

"If only," Daniel said, moving to the opposite wall and trying to push through there. He called over his shoulder, "We can't get through now."

"You're kidding, right?"

Daniel didn't say anything, just exchanged a "you see what I put up with" glance with Janet. They both tried again on Jack's side, heaving with their shoulders at the barrier. Jack was pushed, too -- Jack could hear his breath huffing in effort -- but with the same result.

"Hm," Daniel said to the air, and then he barked to Jack, "Catch," and swept off his boonie and threw it at the wall. It bounced off. So Janet took her stethoscope from around her neck and threw it, wide of where Jack's voice had come from. It sailed through as if the wall wasn't there. Janet zipped her jacket back up to her chin. It really was extremely cold.

"What the hell?" Jack said, and "Uh oh," said someone behind him -- the fourth man from SG-8, Casey.

"My feelings exactly," Janet said. Jack pushed again at the barrier. Same thing -- a slight bulge around his fist.

Jack said, "The others went on to the gate, right?"

"Yes, sir, they're gone," Casey said. "Major Carter told me to come back and check on you three."

Janet said, "Doctor Warner was due in at 12-hundred. Hargrave needs immediate attention. So how do we get out of here?"

"I have no idea," Daniel said. There was a pause. "We were passing back and forth through it freely, when we sent the message through the gate after Teal'c and Kent were hurt. After that happened Captain Casey and I were looking around the area, looking at the columns, trying to find the trigger for the energy field, or at least something to explain why it appeared."

"Wait. Let's think. _Everyone_ was walking around?" Jack said.

"Okay, right," Daniel said slowly. "Teal'c and Kent fell, Sam knelt down by them...." Daniel was making a slow circuit of the inside of their prison, scanning the inscriptions on the columns as he thought out loud. Janet frowned and began to pace in the opposite direction, not sure what she'd find, but looking, all the same.

Jack said, "Casey, go on back down to the gate and report what's happened here. Then come back."

"Yes, sir," Casey said, and Janet heard his footsteps take off at a run.

"So," Jack said to Janet, coming close to where she was standing at one of the four corner pillars. She could see him prodding at the purple. "Objects will still go through, some objects, anyway, but not people."

Daniel's thinking out loud had subsided to muttering out loud. Janet pulled out the chewed-on remains of the power bar that had been her lunch, considered that she might need it later, and then, wondering what the difference was between the boonie and the stethoscope, she patted her pockets for something non-essential. She settled on her binoculars.

"Catch," she murmured to Jack, and tossed them out. Daniel continued muttering.

"Got 'em," Jack said, and then, "Heads up," and he tossed them back. They sailed right through again, into Janet's waiting hands.

"Hm," she said.

"Nice game," Jack said. "Just like playing infield." Janet could hear him rubbing his hands together, then blowing on them. "So, I remember Carter and Padillo helping T. and Hargrave when they went down. They weren't walking in and out like the rest of us after that. Padillo had been trying to read these columns over here. And just before.... Uh-- Hey, Daniel?"

"Oh no," Daniel said, too quickly to be a response to Jack's question.

"Daniel," Jack said, more emphatically. Daniel was standing still, one hand on his bare head, staring at a column.

"Well, not 'oh no' in a bad way," Daniel said, the words tumbling out in a rush, "because nothing's going to blow up and there's no emergency, and 'oh no' in a good way, kind of, because I've found a section I can read. 'Oh no' because of what it says."

"Do tell," Jack said, before Janet could. Daniel began muttering again, louder, speaking what sounded like Latin, so, Janet surmised, it must be Ancient.

Jack raised his voice a little. "Daniel, I think it triggered right when Carter came inside. Right when she crossed the threshold, if you will. Is that what you saw?"

"Oh no," Daniel said again, turning toward Jack's voice. "I think I've definitely figured it out. And wait, what did you just say? Sam was the last one in, before the barrier activated?"

"I think so. I think it went 'pow' and got Teal'c and Hargrave right after she crossed in. More of a 'zap', actually." Jack sounded thoughtful and calm. Janet knew it for an act.

Daniel slid his hand over his face. Then he said, "Oh, crap."

"Daniel." Jack's voice was still calm. Just barely. "Not a mind-reader, here. Share."

Janet folded her arms and waited. She knew better than to interfere with the hive mind she'd seen at work among SG-1, whether it was two, three or all four of them intent on intuiting a solution. Multi-tasking didn't begin to cover what they did when they pooled their experience in the field.

"Um, Janet, we have a problem. A big, big problem." Daniel frowned at her.

"Daniel?" Jack's tone was now signaling just how out of patience he was.

"The energy barrier? It's a, a, safe enclosure. A privacy enclosure. Apparently -- and Jack, your remembering that it was Sam's entrance into the area is key here -- it knows when two, um, when an opposite-sex couple is present, and it is intended to limit access so that the couple can, um."

"I'd say that qualifies as a problem," Janet said.

"Oh, crap," Jack said. "That's what the warnings on the columns are?"

"Yes," Daniel said, squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath of the frosty air, seeming to collect his thoughts and organize them for presentation. He spoke rapidly and calmly. "They're written in several languages, including an archaic form of Goa'uld, which I've rarely seen before and which is interesting in and of itself, but in any case this section, here, is in a variant of Ancient with which I'm familiar and it's announcements and celebrations for the, um, happy couple, and reminders to stand clear of the barrier and exhortations for, um," and Daniel's gaze slid to Janet and then to the floor at her feet, "good sex."

Janet's eyebrows went up.

"The Ancient version of the No-Tell Motel?" Jack squawked. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"No, actually, I think it's more like the Las Vegas Wedding Chapel, with extra added public ceremony." Daniel kicked at a seam in the floor and looked around again. "I think this arcade is part of a temple complex, as I said before the accident. But apparently this enclosed area right here" -- his hands were eloquent, before they settled around his own waist -- "becomes a private area when the walls are triggered, because what happens in this area is supposed to be part of the marriage ceremony. The part of the ceremony that one could, I suppose, politely refer to as, um, consummation."

Janet closed her eyes and silently asked for strength. "Well, surely, if we search, we might be able to find a way to shut down the force field."

"It's worth a try," Daniel said, "but I'm not liking the fact that it was apparently triggered when Sam crossed the plane of the walls as we see them. It was triggered exactly when Sam came inside. There's some sort of mechanism that could register when a woman joined the men in here, do you see?"

"Ah," Jack said, resignation clear in his voice. "SG-8 is all people of the male persuasion."

"So you're speculating," Janet said, "that there are sensors for the energy field keyed to some biochemical marker or pheromone. That they could sense when Sam entered, and then sense when you and I were left alone. To be a matched set, as it were."

"Exactly," Daniel said. He seemed less embarrassed than before, perhaps grateful for her matter-of-fact tone.

"It did just a little bit too good of a job of reading our intentions, wouldn't you say? So smart, it was dumb?" Janet went on.

Jack laughed. Daniel looked pained, like he was feeling personally responsible.

"Well," Janet continued, still all reasonable, "tell me what to look for. There must be some way to turn it off."

Casey ran up, his boots skidding on the grass. Jack briefed him, speaking vaguely, Janet noted, about the nature of the booby trap (and she smiled to herself at the joke, then winced), and sent him back down the hill again to the gate. As she and Daniel listened, they also discovered that small metal, or fairly heavy organic, objects would pass through the purple barrier readily. People, caterpillars, inanimate objects that were quite light, or electronics, would not. Casey left again. Jack tossed some of the items back in, although not the large furry caterpillar. Janet turned to scanning the nearest column, running both gloved hands along it, down to the floor and as high as she could reach, feeling for a switch or a hidden panel. Daniel stayed by the pillar written in Ancient, reading, tapping a finger against his lower lip, still as a statue.

"You want me to radio for Kearney or Ling?" Jack asked Daniel. He'd moved around the perimeter again, probably examining the columns out there.

"Noooo," Daniel said. "I don't think...." Janet glanced at him. He was now doing as she'd been doing, feeling along the column, up as far as he could reach. "I don't think that will be necessary, unfortunately. They could help me read the inscriptions, certainly, but...." He huffed out a breath as he straightened and stepped back.

"Okay. Okay," he said. "I think--" He paused, then spoke loudly and clearly in the almost-Latin that was Ancient. He paused, looking expectant. He tried again: another short phrase in another language. He raised his eyebrows and looked around. "I'm saying, 'We changed our minds; let us out.' "

"Ah," Jack said.

"Okay," Janet said, and raised her voice and repeated the phrase in Earth Latin. Daniel smiled at her, looking knowing. "In case that's close enough," she added.

"Fingers crossed," Daniel said, and glanced around the purple walls with a hopeful expression. Nothing happened. His smile fading, he went back to his pillar, running his fingers over the carvings. He stepped back and cleared his throat and spoke again. It sounded very similar to the first Ancient sentence, but not identical.

There was a sudden snapping sound from behind Janet, and she whipped her head around to see sparks and a puff of smoke coming from the base of the column in the far corner. Daniel said, "Okay, then," and followed her over to kneel cautiously. They waved the smoke away. There were lights now, glowing at the column's base where the sparks had emerged. As they watched, a couple went dark.

"Jack, we may have found a control panel," Daniel said.

"Excellent, because, you know, I'm freezing my ass off out here. The wind has picked up a bunch and the sun's going down fast."

Janet bit her lip, glancing around. It had indeed gotten much darker. She went to her kit and rummaged for a flashlight. She held it over Daniel's shoulder as he studied the panel.

"Thank you," Daniel said absently. He was muttering again, translating. He zipped up his jacket and groped for his gloves. Then he said, "I think there is definitely an 'off' switch here. I just have to figure out..."

"Oh rapture," Jack said.

Daniel went on muttering and translating to himself, then raised his voice again for Jack's benefit. "The purple walls are definitely a privacy screen, and there are sensors to let the walls know when the couple has, um, finished, and also it talks about the voice commands we tried. But something..." he trailed off, still intent on reading. He took the light from Janet, aiming it at another section of the column.

Janet said, incredulous, "It can sense when the couple has sex? And sense when they're done?"

"Apparently," Daniel said.

"Ye Olde Vegas Wedding Chapel indeed," Jack said. His voice unexpectedly came from right next to their pillar, making Janet jump.

A silence fell while Daniel read some more. "Okay," he said, finally. "According to this, the last phrase I spoke should have worked."

"Something did happen," Janet said. "The lights came on; the mechanism engaged, perhaps. Or tried to."

"Right," Daniel said. "So I'm afraid that possibly it's broken. That I gave the right voice command to let us out, but it's not doing what it's supposed to and making the barrier fall."

"This colonnade looks very old. It's not inconceivable that something could have deteriorated," Janet said, reluctantly.

"I have no real way of dating it without lab work, but.... And look here -- look at these stains, and this mossy stuff on the back of the pillar."

"Possibly a water leak," Janet said.

Daniel said, "It's entirely possible the mechanism has been damaged. But there's a plan B, I think, now that we tried the voice command."

"Oh, goody," Jack said. Janet heard him stomping.

"Two of these light panels are labeled, like buttons or switches. It says we're supposed to press them, and the barrier will fall. But one is the one that went dark."

"Try it?" Janet said.

"Go for it," Jack said. "Unless you see some urgent reason not to. You know; freezing out here. Not that this is all about me or anything."

Janet pulled off her glove. Daniel said, "No, no, it should be.... Okay, Janet, you press right here.... On 'three'... One, two, three."

Janet pressed the glowing diamond-shaped recess in the stone. Daniel pressed the diamond next to it, identical in shape, but dark. The same snapping sound, the same sparks and seeping smoke. Daniel swore and yanked his hand away, shaking his fingers. Janet's light went out, then the rest of the lights on the panel did, too. The purple walls did not change. They glowed faintly as the dark deepened.

"Are you hurt?" Janet said. "Did it shock you?"

"Yeah, a little electric buzz. Nothing too serious. I'm fine." Daniel got to his feet, still shaking his hand and flexing his fingers. "Guys, that should have worked."

"Aw, crap," Jack said.

"Yes. That," Janet said.

"The instructions are very clear," Daniel insisted, sounding incredulous. "The voice command, or the buttons. Or, the barrier falls automatically when the, um, marriage rite is over."

"What about that, anyway?" Janet said, getting to her feet. Daniel's profile was eerily illuminated by the dim purple glow. It was like being inside a lava lamp. "Another automatic sensor? Working the same way you're theorizing as when the device registers an opposite-sex couple?"

"I'm thinking so," Daniel said absently. "Try the diamond buttons again?"

Janet knelt on the cold stone, and they tried again. The dark panel remained inert. No sparks, no smoke, nothing.

"Guys?" Jack said.

"We tried the 'off' buttons again, Colonel. Nothing." She met Daniel's eyes. They frowned at each other.

"Okay, Plan C?" Jack said, with an artificially buoyant optimism.

"Plan C," Janet said crisply. "So, I'm gathering that what we try next is having sex."

Daniel made a choking noise.

"I could try zatting the barrier," Jack said. "Sometimes that works."

"Yes," Daniel said. "You go right ahead."

"Colonel--" Janet began, but Daniel was already moving as far away from Jack as possible, plastering himself against one of the far pillars and covering his head. Janet hurried to join him.

She heard the familiar crackling charge-up of the zat, then its discharge. There was a storm of white noise. Then silence.

"I got nothin'," Jack said. She and Daniel turned around. The purple walls were unchanged.

"So, Daniel," Janet said, "you come here often?"

"I really appreciate your attempt to use humor to lighten the situation, I really do, but under the circumstances--"

"Daniel. The voice command is broken, and so is, apparently, the 'off' switch," Janet said, schooling her voice to calmness. "And, have you noticed how much colder it's getting?"

Daniel looked around. "Yeah, I've noticed that."

"Nightfall? Freezing?" she persisted.

"Yeah, guys, the temperature is pretty much plummeting out here, I gotta say. Carter took the thermometer doohickey with her, but this is ... damn cold. And I say that as a Minnesota boy. I guess you're out of the wind in there?"

"Shit," Daniel said, succinct and frustrated.

"C4?" Jack said hopefully. Janet could hear him clapping his gloved hands, then scrubbing them together.

"Wouldn't that bring down the ceiling on us?" Janet pointed out.

Jack still sounded calm. "Well, maybe, plus with the temperature doing what it's doing, we might not have time to go get it and bring it back before somebody turns into a popsicle. I'm cowering right here behind the pillar on the sheltered side now. Wind chill factor of what the fuck."

"It's getting really dark," Daniel commented.

"Observes the guy with two Ph.D.'s. How does he do it, Doc?"

"Look," Janet said, resisting the temptation to play 'my degrees are better than yours'. Jack always did bring out the 8-year-old in everyone around him, and she was not as immune to it as she liked to pretend. "Daniel. We should try it."

"I really don't think...." Daniel said.

Jack sighed, long and gusty.

"I realize it's not a good solution," Janet said. "But you're pretty sure about the writing on the columns. The barriers are keyed to a biological signal, something chemical, released inside here, if the occupants don't use the voice command or the switch."

"Pretty sure, yeah," Daniel said, heavy and resigned.

"I mean, it does go against my oath -- both my oaths, actually, but it's not fatal, unlike, oh, hypothermia, for instance." She kept her voice even. "And it's likely the sensors are working even though the off switch isn't, because they were working well enough to trigger the wall when they knew Sam was here."

"I couldn't ask you to...." Daniel took off his glasses and began rubbing his face.

"Daniel sometimes has trouble finishing his sentences," Jack said, sounding confiding. Conspiratorial.

She sighed. She was tempted to ask the colonel to, not to put too fine a point on it, butt the hell out. It really was getting quite alarmingly cold. "Daniel--" she began, just as he said her name at the same time.

"Go ahead," he said, sitting down heavily, cross-legged, and looking at his ankles. She was intensely aware of the presence of Jack, listening and alert.

"Colonel, would you excuse us? Step away out of earshot and find some shelter in the next structure? This will get personal."

"Sure." Despite his verbal agreement, Jack hesitated, but then he quickly walked away. He began to whistle, a tune she didn't recognize, something falsely cheerful. The whistling receded.

She turned to Daniel and sat down, tucking her feet to one side. The stone floor was freezing. "I realize you would never ask me to do this under normal circumstances. Just as I'd never ask you. You know all the reasons as well as I do: We're colleagues, you're my patient, we're friends."

He waved a hand, as if to say how obvious all that was.

She continued, determined, "But this isn't normal circumstances, and the objective here is to get home alive. To be blunt, you're an attractive guy, this won't ruin my life in any way shape or form, this ain't my first rodeo, and I think we have to try it. It's our best shot right now. Pardon the pun."

There was silence. He stared at his feet. "Janet, I appreciate your candor, and your empathy. I really do. I just...."

Jack's voice startled them both. "Daniel. Tell her."

"Colonel!" "Jack!"

"Sorry. Old habits."

"You sneaked up on us," Daniel said, accusing, on his feet now and quite irate.

"Well. Yeah."

"This is a private conversation," Janet said sharply, as her heartrate settled. "You don't have any issues with that, do you? _Colonel?_"

Jack began to laugh.

Janet got to her feet, too, truly annoyed now and not bothering to hide it. "Colonel, you aren't helping. One bit."

"I know, I know, I just... I'm sorry, and I'm saying that to both of you. I apologize. I do. Let me just say one more thing to Daniel and I'll go on next door and you can call me if you, um, need me."

"We can solve this without your intervention," Janet snapped. The man would never change. Sarcastic, inappropriately humorous, more than a little controlling.

"Janet. A moment. Please. ...Daniel. You heard me."

"Bad idea, Jack."

"If it was anybody but Fraiser, I would agree with that. But it's okay. Go ahead and tell her."

And then Jack went. He intentionally made noise, as loud now as he'd been stealthy a minute ago. His footsteps fell heavily on the strip of grass that surrounded the colonnade, then crunched on gravel, then finally, Janet heard distant whistling.

She spoke softly, but she didn't whisper. "Tell me what, Daniel?"

"I don't want to talk about it. He's out of line." Daniel was standing facing away from her, his arms folded.

"Daniel, please. I want -- I need -- to hear your objections."

She waited. Suddenly he turned to her. "I don't have any objections. Forget what Jack said. You're right. We have to try this, and we have to try it now."

"All right," Janet said, relieved. A shiver ran through her; partly the cold and partly the situation. Daniel turned away from her and began to pace again. She continued, "So. It's a biological trigger. What do you suppose it wants now, specifically? Semen? The pheromones of arousal? What?"

Daniel squared his shoulders and stopped pacing. He came over to her and met her eyes. She could just make out his determined expression in the light from the walls. He blew out a big breath and folded her into a hug. She closed her eyes and put her arms around him. He shifted and brought her close -- taking the hug beyond friendly or appropriate, pulling her full length against him. It felt so good and so warm in the icy dimness.

"I don't know. Perhaps...." he started, and then he paused and she could almost feel him leashing his embarrassment and making himself say the words. She waited, holding on to him. Daniel Jackson was an intensely private person. He said, "Do you think we could both masturbate, and then, touch. Maybe just our hands."

"We'll try it that way." She patted his back, and turned her head and stretched up to kiss his cheek. They had to try something, maybe that would work. Then they wouldn't have to do anything more intimate. The feel of faint stubble and skin was warm and familiar against her lips. She put her head against his shoulder again and hugged him harder. Janet hoped, fleetingly, then put it out of her mind, that the colonel really had stayed away.

Daniel patted her shoulder and stepped back. He took off his jacket and spread it on the stone floor, and sat down. After a moment he apparently reconsidered and moved to his knees instead. She took off her jacket, too, and spread it beside his. She sat down against his shoulder, just touching him as he knelt, but facing in the opposite direction.

"Thank you," he said. "Good idea."

"I might have to lie down in a minute," she said. "I'll just try to kind of curl up here. Just -- don't mind me, okay? We'll just do whatever works. Fantasy is your friend."

He laughed outright then, and groped for her hand. His was warm and dry. She squeezed it hard.

"This is truly insane; you know that," he said.

"And that is different from our normal life at the SGC how, Doctor Jackson?" She laughed, too, and brought the back of his hand to her lips, kissed it, and let go. Time to get on with it. She closed her eyes and started undoing her fly.

Daniel at her shoulder was nothing but a radiating, formless warmth. She tried to respect his privacy, tried not to think about him. But she realized right away, as she was sliding her hand down inside her cotton briefs, behind the draped-open front of her blue slacks, that there was no way that she was going to be relaxed enough to get to orgasm while kneeling. She bit her lip. Daniel was breathing deeply and slowly and had gone very still beside her.

She shifted to lie on her side, curling into a ball with her back to Daniel, and easing her slacks down around her thighs as she did. Still awkward, but much better than being upright. She nudged Daniel with her shoulder as she wriggled, and she murmured, "Sorry, excuse me," and he said, "It's okay." He sounded abstracted.

She wished she were a little more abstracted. She exhaled, long and deliberately, and slid her fingers into her underwear again, pausing to rub a little over her mound. She pushed her fingers between her thighs, lingering along the familiar warm, damp folds, and then all the way down and in, letting her middle finger ease inside. She squeezed around her own finger, trying to connect with the reality of needing to do this, of being in this ridiculous situation in the first place, of the goal of the enterprise, so, well, alien to the way she ordinarily managed masturbation.

She found her cheeks were hot. And then was immediately annoyed with herself for being embarrassed at all.

Not a good beginning. No.

Fantasy is your friend -- she damn well needed to take her own advice. She inhaled, trying to get a whiff of him, trying to make this about her and Daniel, trying to imagine his face, imagine him looking at her fondly, kindly, wanting this.

She couldn't make the picture come clear. It just wouldn't work. She moved her hand gently, thrusting easily with her finger, not very wet at all yet, trying to enjoy her physical sensations, trying to make a bridge into her emotions. She could feel Daniel's body heat, but he might as well have been a million miles away. They weren't doing this together. They were just here, just stuck here. They were the antithesis of together.

So, okay. Thinking of Daniel, cute, sweet and wonderful though he was, wasn't going to work. Plan B. She scrunched her eyes tightly, keeping her hand moving, her finger inside while pressing the heel of her hand against the curls and the cushiony skin of her mound. She felt farther from arousal than ever.

Okay, so... think. Dream. Movie stars? The hot new commander of SG-5? Or, something tried and true. Something real.

_Jack._

The colonel wouldn't mind, under the circumstances. She was pretty sure. Besides, she'd found when she was taking care of herself under much more pleasant circumstances that real, happy memories beat manufactured fantasies any day. And Jack had certainly given her plenty of those.

He was waiting for them, out there in the dark. But how close was he? Close enough to hear them? Close enough to eavesdrop?

She found that thinking about the possibility of that, that Jack was pressed against one of the columns, listening, wanting to help, wanting to at least support them somehow even if he couldn't help, finally produced the warm jolt down her spine that she'd been trying to evoke.

Jack, so considerate in bed, so warm. Maybe not the best she'd ever had, but definitely in the top three.

Jack. She let her mind drift through a catalog of memories and time, back to Germany, back to the old days before she'd ever heard of such a thing as a Stargate, before they'd reconnected in Colorado with surprise and wariness and a distant professionalism masking a certain amount of regret, a certain sadness for roads not taken. Back then, they'd both been younger and more personally reckless. Back then, nearly everything was different. Europe had seemed so exotic. Rich food, the best beer she'd ever tasted, the beautiful architecture, the excitement of everything new. The danger, the testing of herself, finding her limits, exercising her mind. And Jack was there, handsome and tough and as surprised as she'd been, she was sure, when they fell into bed.

His hands. His mouth. His lean body under hers; his neck arching under her kisses, the way he used to groan when he was about to give up and let his climax happen.

She twisted her head against the inadequate pillow of her and Daniel's jackets, and found that her fingers had crept up, leaving off stroking inside to tease with friction outside. She rubbed, using her own juices to smooth the strokes, two fingers moving rhythmically, the firming button of her clitoris between them.

She licked her lips and let the memories take her again; still so awkwardly aware of her chilly bottom hanging out of her pants, aware of Daniel's warmth at her back. Go with that -- feel the cool air on her buttocks, add the warmth of Jack's hands, like she'd felt that one night that he'd taken her for a drive in his buddy's borrowed Mercedes, one amazing night just before he left, headed stateside again. They'd coupled in the back seat, the cold sharp air of a fall night around them, and it hadn't been so different from this -- the contrast of warm skin and cold upholstery, the way their breath clouded the windows when they came, the way he felt inside her, sliding thick and warm and so deep.

A final few strokes inside, two fingers this time, gathering the wet, and then back to her clit. Close now. Close. She could do this. She could get there... just a little more.

She turned her head from side to side and thought about relaxing her shoulders, knowing she was in the zone, dialed into a climax that was pretty much guaranteed now as long as she didn't break her rhythm. She surfaced enough from the fantasy of her memories to check her surroundings again; the dim blur of purple light, the knowledge that Jack was there, somewhere, for real, guarding them, taking care, staying close. And she was aware, suddenly, that Daniel was right there, too, right there, close -- he was straining now, up on his knees, his hip pressing her spine, and he jerked and gasped. He was coming, there next to her, crazy, fucked-up thing that this was -- Daniel, sweet amazing Daniel, all drive and courage, bearing up under the unfairest of fates, Daniel, coming, right there, right there... and she was right there too, tipping over, the clutch and jerk of a small but vividly complete orgasm making her gasp, making her heart skip. She caught her breath and pressed her hand against her vulva, palm and fingers pushing, cupping, and there was just one little pulse of an aftershock, and she was done. She breathed deeply, enjoying the race of her heartbeat, the spread of warmth through her torso. She'd gotten there. And so had Daniel. And it had damn well better be enough.

_Stupid messes we get ourselves into...._

She waited, holding the moment, continuing to cup herself, aware once again of the bitter cold of the purple room. Daniel was panting. The tension had gone out of his back and he was sagging a little.

He cleared his throat, and she clicked back to the ultimate goal here, and their theory about pheromones and semen and the probable chemical trigger for this damned alien device, and quickly pressed her fingers deep inside herself again, trying to gather up whatever juices she could, and then pulled her hand away, half sitting as she did, tugging at her slacks with her other hand.

There was Daniel's hand. He was holding out his hand.

"Here goes nothing," she said, and grabbed it. Warm wetness, squishing a little between their palms.

They waited.

"Well, that was embarrassing," Daniel said, calmly, after a few seconds.

"Let's hope it wasn't also futile," Janet said.

He squeezed her hand tighter. She shifted her grip, linking their fingers, rubbing, trying to mix the fluid on their fingers and in their palms as much as possible.

"Guys?" Jack's voice jolted through Janet's solar plexus and made her heart speed up again. She was sure Daniel felt her jerk. "Everybody okay in there?"

"I'm fine; we're fine," Daniel said. He put his dry hand on her shoulder. They were still resolutely looking away from each other.

"Present and accounted for, sir," Janet said. Her voice was heavy with disappointment.

"Crap," Jack said, and she heard a dull thud, followed by a springy sound. She assumed he was punching a column, and then the energy barrier, which -- no one stating the obvious here, for which she was truly grateful -- had not, after all that, fallen.

Daniel let go of her hand at the same time she let go of his. There was no plan. They just let go together. She still didn't look at him. He got up and she heard him rummaging. She went to her kit and found a wipe to scrub her hand. She sighed.

"Guys?" Jack said again.

"Obviously what we tried first, didn't work," Daniel said rapidly, his voice pitched to carry, and carefully controlled. Janet found she was biting down on her back teeth. She consciously relaxed her jaw.

"So, you two geniuses have a backup plan that goes into effect now?" Jack said, going for brightly hopeful.

"Yes," Janet said. "Which is your cue to make yourself scarce again."

"We have some options," Daniel said, still with his voice raised, so Janet assumed he was talking to the colonel, though the message could just as easily have been for her. Or maybe to reassure himself. "We'll be fine alone here, Jack. Please. Stay warm out there."

She turned to face him, then, finally. It seemed symbolic. "I'm sorry, Daniel."

He came right to her and took her in his arms. She hugged him back. He was warm. He drew back just enough to look down at her, and he put his hand on her cheek. "May I kiss you?" he said, and she smiled at him and curled her hand around his nape and drew his head down to hers.

It felt very experimental. It felt odd; his cool soft lips, his warm breath. It felt so generic, like it could be any kiss she'd ever had, and yet it was shot through with her crazy odd inescapable knowledge that this was Daniel. She felt like an actress in a play, going through the motions.

That would help, she decided. It was a role she had to play. Daniel's mysterious secret lover. It made her smile.

"What?" he said.

"Nothing. Just crazy thoughts; trying to find a way to fit this inside my brain. A way to make it work."

"Good luck with that," Daniel said, and kissed her again, exploring a little, testing the territory, clearly trying to wrap his mind around it, too. Tentative, but very nice. He was such a gentleman. She felt a rush of warm affection for him.

"Come on," she said. She led him back over to their jackets.

"Colonel?" she called. "You'd better be exiting now!"

They listened, standing there hand in hand, but he didn't answer.

She said to Daniel, "I think, if you don't mind, that you should lie down here on your back."

"Give you room to work," Daniel said, smiling, and she was so relieved to see he had his sense of humor back.

"Exactly," she said, managing to grin, as he went to his knees on the jackets. "Let me be on top. And I'm going to take my slacks entirely off; I hope that's okay."

"It's necessary," he said, his smiling fading to half. He took off his glasses and put them aside.

"And I am assuming that you will agree that our chances of giving the shutoff-switch what it wants will be improved if there's no condom?"

Daniel winced. "I had thought of that. I don't want to do that to you, but you came to the same conclusion about that, that I did."

"Well, unless there's something in your bloodwork that you've managed to conceal from me, I think we're probably okay there, aren't we?"

Daniel wouldn't meet her eyes. But he nodded.

"And you might want to know that I'm on the Pill. Long explanation why, medical not sexual, but... anyway. If that's settled."

"Yes. Good." He stared into space, clearly not really seeing her, deep in his thoughts again.

"Oh," Janet said, pausing with her hands on her zipper. "This is rushing it for you, isn't it? I know we're short on time...."

He stirred and looked around. "I think we'll be okay. But if you could just give me a couple of minutes to get ready for you."

"All right," she said. "I'm going to lie down, then, and you let me know when you're ready." She sat on her jacket.

He nodded. He started to undo his own pants again, and then he leaned over and kissed her cheek, gently, almost apologetically. "This is nuts. I'm so sorry."

"No worries now. Worry later."

He nodded, and she turned away.

She took a deep breath and unfastened her boots and got out of them, stripped out of her slacks and underwear. She decided that no matter how silly it looked, she was leaving her socks on. The stone floor was like ice. The people who got married here must have had beds and hangings and carpets. Or only used the place in summertime. She folded her slacks on top of her jacket, an inadequate mattress, and lay on them. Daniel had his back to her again, kneeling, very like before. She curled up on her side, to wait. She touched herself, gently, slowly, trying to let her mind drift, trying to relax.

After a bit she heard Daniel stir, and he shifted position. She pressed her eyes more tightly closed. Crazy, whacked out. This entire situation was nuts. She was going to do her best to come again; it might not be necessary, but she wanted to increase their chances any way she could of getting the hell out of here. Whatever it took.

"Janet," he said, low and tentative, and she turned her head and sat up.

He was lying on his back, his eyes closed, his BDU pants pushed down around his thighs, his hand gently gripping his erection, pushing at it so that it pointed straight up. His hair was straight, not curly. The skin of his thighs and his belly was very pale. As she watched he gave his penis a slow stroke. She inhaled. Well, shit. Lucky her. She'd seen his genitals before, examined him. Nudity was nothing strange or embarrassing to her. But she felt guilty for how beautiful he suddenly looked to her, how vulnerable and how sexy. He was so damn handsome. This was so wrong.

"It's all right, honey," she said, and then winced. She wished she hadn't let that slip out. She bent over him, kissed him again, briefly, on the mouth, and he didn't open his eyes, but he kissed her back, just a little, and then he smiled. Just a little.

"All right," she said, and she swung her knee over him and put her hand over his, helping to hold him at the right angle.

She closed her eyes, too, abruptly recoiling at the touch of his glans, abruptly unwilling to do this, to let him inside. It was too much; too intimate, too exposing, too close. She sighed, made herself relax, and kept moving. As she'd hoped, and as he'd clearly understood she wanted, he let her take control. She sank down, taking him inside her. She was still wet enough from her previous orgasm that it was, while not a frictionless slide, easy enough. Pleasant enough, if the circumstances had been different.

He moved his hand from between them, and she sank all the way, resting atop his hips. She must have made a noise, an uncomfortable sound of some sort, because he put both hands on her knees and said, "Janet?"

It made her open her eyes. He'd lifted his head. He was looking at her, worried. Daniel. Definitely a gentleman; so sweet. She smiled in spite of herself and put both her hands on his.

"I feel really lucky it's you I ended up with here and not someone from SG-8; you know that, right?"

He smiled and shook his head. He put his head back down, staring at the ceiling.

Okay, this was real. So very real. Somehow having to open her eyes, look at him, talk, while he was inside her, made it realer than ever. There was no way to blunt the experience now, with fantasy or closed eyes, and that galvanized something in Janet. This sucked. But here they were. And she was going to make the best of it.

"I'm okay. It's okay. You feel good," she said. And he petted her knee, just a little, just an acknowledgement, still looking at the ceiling of their prison.

She tightened her abs, and raised herself on her knees, and began to stroke -- up, and down, riding him. Trying it out, seeing how he fit, how long he was, how it would work.

And he let her. He'd closed his eyes again. She couldn't close hers now. She had to watch his face as she moved on him and pressed her fingers against her mound, ramping up the slow friction, trying for that elusive effortless effort that would let her climax again.

Up, and down. His lips were moist, as if he'd licked them when she wasn't looking, and there -- he licked them again. His hands tightened on her knees. He seemed to get harder inside her. She hoped he was finding something good to think about; someone he loved or had loved, something to make this work for him.

He really did feel good inside her. There was no denying that. She admired him, she liked him. This would be all right; it truly would. This was Daniel. She rested her gaze on the curve of his jaw, then glanced along his body. It was a strange juxtaposition -- his exposed hips, and then the drape of his blouse and his T-shirt, the tails of the uniform blouse parted a little -- one button undone there -- to show her the faint trail of hair that led down to ... back to ... her. To where he was buried inside her.

She slid her hand between her body and his, spreading her fingers, to feel his shaft disappearing inside her as she moved. It was good. She let go of all the awkward weirdness, thought about Daniel, Daniel's essential good gentleness, his smile, and she moved up and down on him and let it happen, let herself want it.

She continued touching herself as she leaned forward, bracing herself one-handed on his shoulder, and yes. Yes... He was getting harder inside her; whether because of what she was doing or his own thoughts or just the basic physical sensation, she had no way of knowing. The friction of her movement came together with her slowly flowering relaxation, her reconciliation with this act, and she closed her eyes.

She moved faster, hips and fingers, and there it was -- a sudden and intense climax, bursting inside her, making her squeeze around him, and then it was over, so fast. She was abruptly wetter; she could feel the little flood, and she gasped and her head dropped.

Daniel made a sound back in his throat, and she managed to lift her head to find him looking at her, straining to keep his neck lifted.

"Way to go Janet," he gasped, and she laughed. She actually laughed. She put her other hand on his shoulder and shifted her knees.

"Tell me what's best, now -- for you," she whispered.

He let his head sink back, and he put his hands on her hips. His hands were warm. She closed her eyes. It was all about him now, and he showed her, pushing gently, pressing, what he needed.

He wanted all her weight on his pelvis, and he wanted her to rock instead of sliding up and down -- wanted her to lean back a little further and press down against him, taking the weight off her knees. She bit her lip and paid attention to the careful, wordless directions she was getting through his hands. She rested her hands on her own ribcage, closing her eyes, and realizing that she had intended to put her hands on her breasts; that that's what she would have done if they'd been doing this for fun. Relief flooded her again; that it was Daniel, someone she trusted, someone she felt close to.

She rocked, the way he wanted slow and heavy. Then, cued by his hands, she sped up gradually. She gave him her weight, grinding against him, and moving him very deeply inside her. Soon she felt the burn of seldom-used muscles in her abs and thighs. He was deep, so deep. She bit her lip and squeezed him inside, hard as she could. And his hands clutched at her hips in answer, and he jolted up -- twice, three times -- strongly enough to bring his hips off the stone floor despite her weight, and she couldn't feel him ejaculating, but she knew it was happening.

Daniel's hands went loose and still at her hips. She covered them with her own. His eyes were open now, but he didn't move and he didn't look at her.

"All right?" she said.

"Yes," he said, not moving. She patted one of his hands. She closed her eyes for a moment. They waited.

Nothing happened to the walls.

"Goddammit," Daniel said, quiet but so vehement.

At least Jack wasn't shouting, Janet thought. "We'll give it a minute. Maybe there's a time delay; you know -- for privacy."

"Maybe." Daniel sighed.

"I'm going to stay here, just in case, all right?"

He patted her chilly thigh. She took that for assent.

Janet took her hands away from his and folded her arms. Her fingers were cold now and wanted to tremble. Her sexual reactions had mostly ebbed, and she could tell it had gotten even colder. She was back to being annoyed, plus fully aware of how truly ridiculous sex was, plus her definite undercurrent of worry was threatening to surface.

"Guys?" Jack's voice was tentative and worried.

"Give it a minute, Jack," Daniel said. She glanced down at him. He rubbed his face with both hands.

"Look, you two, we're out of options. The next--"

"Not now, Jack," Daniel barked. She heard Jack's heavy footsteps crunching gravel again, receding. She waited, still sitting there, forlorn and ridiculous atop Daniel, his penis softening inside her. Daniel didn't speak again. The silence stretched out, a heavy dark thing.

Jack's footsteps were coming back. "Okay," he said. "I'm calling this. I'm going to the gate and radioing for heavy--"

The wall disappeared. It just wasn't there, between one eyeblink and the next. No crackle of electricity, nothing. It was there, and then it wasn't.

And Jack was revealed, standing there frozen in mid-gesticulation. Janet's eyes got wide, and Daniel's hand slapped against the bare skin of her hip and squeezed, a pointless instinctive gesture of protection, perhaps. The icy wind hit them, making them both flinch.

Jack's eyes got wide, too, and then he turned his back. He punched the air. "Yes!" he crowed.

"Don't say it, Jack," Daniel said.

Janet felt shaky with relief. She leaned forward gingerly and met Daniel's eyes. He looked relieved and receptive, and so she leaned forward all the way and kissed him gently, one last time, bringing their chests together. As she sat up again, she felt there was something she should say, but she couldn't summon any words. At all.

She slid aside gingerly, knowing there would be a puddle, fumbling for her nearby underwear. She was willing to sacrifice the ability to wear it home in favor of quickly wiping up. A new gust hit them, making her gasp, making the cold even colder.

_Yes, mom, I had clean underwear._ She bit back a laugh that would have sounded hysterical. She stood up, fumbling to pull on her slacks, and stuffed her damp undies in a pocket. As soon as she had moved aside, Daniel rolled away from her, turning his back again. She didn't watch as he, presumably, cleaned up too.

He called to Jack, "We're decent," and she heard him mutter, "if you can call it that," and that made her smile.

Jack came in then, and, mercifully silent, he started grabbing gear and kits and tossing them to the grass, past the lip of the stone floor, moving rapidly. Janet picked up her jacket and stepped hastily onto the frosty grass herself. Once she, the lone female, was beyond the perimeter, there was presumably no danger of anyone having to stage a repeat performance. She shrugged into her jacket and zipped it up. She smoothed her hair and was amazed to find her hand was steady. Daniel had his jacket zipped now too, and was helping gather the gear. Jack tossed Janet her boots.

"The socks were a nice touch," he called, and he came to her with a strange mix of emotions on his face -- chagrin, embarrassment, relief, and laughter. All her annoyance melted away. She dropped the boots to hug him, and after a startled moment, he hugged her back. Hard.

"Let's get the hell out of here," she said against his shoulder.

Daniel was coming up behind him. He clapped Jack on the back. "Yes, let's," was all he said, and somewhat to Janet's surprise, when Jack let go of her, he turned to Daniel immediately and hugged him, too. A real, tight, full-body hug, one hand on Daniel's neck, one arm tight around his waist.

Daniel hugged him back, strongly, and patted him on the shoulder and broke away first, looking down, stuffing his hands in his pockets. And then they picked up their gear and made a beeline for the gate, and home.

She and Daniel had to tell General Hammond the truth, of course, but thanks to Jack's solitary sentry duty, no one else found out. Officially, at least. Janet had to ask Sam not to ask, and so of course Sam probably figured it out all on her own, but Janet didn't actually come right out and tell her, and that was the important thing. Janet was actually quite sorry that she and Sam couldn't hash it out, process it together, over white wine on her sofa, wearing their pajamas, the very next night after Cassie went to sleep, but because it involved a member of Sam's team, as well as some pretty serious professional ethics violations, she simply felt better leaving Sam out of it. Sam, she was sure, understood. She was fairly sure Jack and Daniel would also refrain from telling Teal'c the specifics.

She smothered her need to talk about it, but the need did not lessen. She waited it out. She consciously shook off the strangeness, and she focused on work. She wondered, though, about Daniel. She hoped he wasn't upset -- with himself or with her. She wrote a sketchy mission report, made sure to look at Daniel's before filing her own, supervised Hargrave's burn treatment, admired Teal'c's quick, symbiote-assisted healing. SG-1's next mission came up in just a couple of days after 919, and when Daniel reported to the infirmary with the others afterward, routine checkup, his manner was that extremely formal politeness which she'd learned over the years was his mask for any uncomfortable feeling, positive or negative.

The colonel, for his part, seemed just the same; a little quieter than usual, maybe, but the same.

She wanted to say something to reassure Daniel, but perhaps it was best not to. Perhaps he would feel she was prying. But, she thought of a way to check in, indirectly, and reassure herself that he was all right with it. That he was putting it behind him. Because Jack would know. And Jack, she felt comfortable asking.


	2. Chapter 2

She armed herself with a bottle of Maker's Mark and drove over to Colonel O'Neill's house on a Saturday when Cassie was at a slumber party. He was surprised to see her. But that was reasonable; she hadn't called first.

"Well, good evening, doctor lady," he said, standing aside to let her in.

"Good evening," she replied, and stepped into the entry hall and down the short flight of stairs into his living room. She'd only been in this house twice before -- once for a wake they'd held for Daniel after the mishap on P3X-866, and once for a wake they'd held for Lieutenant Barber and the first SG-5. It was a comfortable house; lived-in and unpretentious. It seemed to fit Jack perfectly.

She turned and looked up at him. He'd stayed on the top step, hands on his hips, his head to one side.

"Of course I have an ulterior motive," she said, saving him the trouble of asking. She ostentatiously showed him the brown sack, and then pulled the bourbon out of it halfway, exposing the brand name. It had always been her favorite. She was sure he still remembered that.

"Maker's Mark is motive enough for me," he said, smiling a little, and turned toward the dining room.

She went and sat on the sofa, setting the bottle on the coffee table. Jack appeared with two crystal tumblers. He made a production of breaking the wax seal and pouring them each two fingers.

"You take ice nowadays?" he said.

"Bite your tongue," she shot back.

"Now's when you quote your Faulkner to me," he said, grinning, and tossed back his double shot. He did remember, though it had been years ago now -- the excitement when a bottle of that brand showed up in the commissary, the deals she would make to get it for them. It made her happy that he remembered a detail like that from their time in Germany; happy and a little wistful. But that was not why she was here tonight. "You always did appreciate the good stuff, Doc," Jack said, contemplating his empty tumbler, turning it so that the light from the hall broke into color in the crystal.

"Actually I have an additional ulterior motive. I came to ask about Daniel," she said. "I hope he's okay, and I assumed you would know."

"I figured you would ask him yourself," Jack said, and he shot her a sidelong glance.

"Well, I could, but...." She sighed and sipped her bourbon. It felt good to relax; to be able to just sit, in the presence of someone who knew what had happened. "He's been the soul of politeness about it, but I just want to make sure he's all right. It had to be a bit... upsetting?"

"Our Daniel. Always the gentleman," Jack said softly, looking at his glass and not at her.

"Yes. He is. And, you know, there's no one I can talk to about it, except you," Janet said. She sipped about half of her remaining bourbon. So smooth, so biting and sweet. Definitely the good stuff. Jack was pouring himself one more finger. She watched him. She was curiously aware of his presence, his deliberate, careful moves. She'd known him well, once upon a time. Once upon a time, when they'd drink this bourbon and then fall into bed, taking their stolen moments. Maybe she'd never known him as well as his ex-wife, or as Daniel, or even the other members of his team. But they'd been close. That was another strange factor in this situation with Daniel -- she'd had sex with both of them now, and they were best friends. It was awkward. And that was just another day at the office. She closed her eyes and leaned back and took another sip.

"Cassandra didn't get too worried, did she? When you were late?"

"No, Sam made it over to the house just about the time I would have gotten home if we hadn't been trapped. Cassie didn't have time to wonder where I was."

"That's good," Jack said. There was a brief silence. "As far as I can tell, we've succeeded in keeping it off the books except for the verbal report," he continued.

"Apparently the general was willing to trust in my professionalism," she said, frowning a little. Jack was continuing to deflect her implied question about Daniel. Maybe he was mulling what to say. "He didn't order me to debrief with anyone outside, or get counseling, either."

"We all trust in your professionalism, Janet. Completely. If you didn't quite get that before, let me emphasize it now." Jack's tone was light, but she knew him well enough to be pretty deeply moved by that sentence. Professionalism. The ability to care, but not too much. The ability to know when to draw the line. Professionalism covered a multitude of sins, she mused. She hoped it would be enough to cover this.

They were quiet. She let Jack think, if that's what he was doing. Jack drank a little bourbon. Janet watched the shimmer of light playing on the surface of the liquid in her own glass. The living room was mostly dark; one floor lamp over by the corner window, and light from the entry hall. She vaguely wondered where Jack had been when she rang the doorbell. In bed? Reading, or working on a crossword? In the basement? She had an impression from her previous visits that the television was in the basement. She'd never known much about his life outside the service, and outside their brief, intense affair. She didn't know anything about his present pursuits, his habits. She knew facts, she knew biography, she knew what he was like in bed, but they'd never, even when they'd been together, talked much. She studied his profile. He seemed a great deal more at ease with the silence than she was.

She sighed. She said, "Patient confidentiality I know how to do, but for some of the situations we get into? I wish sometimes I'd had experience in covert ops. I envy your facility with keeping secrets."

"No, you don't." He seemed pretty certain of that.

She put down her tumbler. The silences, and his enigmatic, short answers were deflating. And staying much longer would be inappropriate. She wondered, crazy train of thought, why their paths had crossed again. Wondered if Jack ever thought about Germany, or if he'd put it quite solidly behind him. He'd had to put away so many things, and so many memories, in locked boxes, she was sure. He was probably way too good at it. But before she called the retreat, she really did want to know the answer to the question he'd evaded. "How is Daniel? Really?"

He met her eyes calmly. "Why do you think I would know?"

Wily bastard. No, the man had not changed. She sighed. "Well, I know you two are close. And from what you hinted on 919, he trusts you enough to tell you some pretty personal things." Jack looked resigned, reserved. He wasn't going to say anything. She finished, "But you know, I can imagine Daniel getting tired of his personal life being so tied up in the history of the program. A person wants a little privacy."

"Yeah," Jack said, and he put his glass on the table with an emphatic thump.

"Just tell me, Jack. I'm not looking for details. Yes or no: Is Daniel all right?"

He turned to her again, looking right at her with those direct, bottomless eyes. "Yeah. He's all right. You both managed it as well as you could. You got home. You didn't warp him."

"Warp him? Please."

"Well. You asked."

She sighed, and tried to smile. "Yeah. I asked."

He said, toying with his empty glass, "Let him be. You don't have to worry about him."

She nodded and picked up her glass and drained her bourbon. They sat there, not looking at each other. "Thanks for telling me," she finally said into his silence, and set her glass on the coffee table and stood up.

"Thanks for being willing to, how shall I say, meet him halfway."

"You know he's my friend."

Jack smiled then; bright and real and wide. "Yeah. I know."

"Good night, Jack." She turned and headed for the stairs. He got up and followed her.

"You don't want to take the bourbon?"

"Nah," she said. "I'd just drink it, and you know how I hate to drink alone." She put her hand on the doorknob, but his hand was on her shoulder.

"Hey," he said, and his voice was low, and more tentative than she was used to hearing from him. "What about you? Are you okay?"

She didn't turn. "I think so. It was just a pretty strong reminder to get a life, I think."

Jack laughed. "Doctor Mom," he said ruefully.

"Boy howdy, you know it. That's it in a nutshell."

"C'mere," he said, and he gently turned her to him and folded her close. She clung to him in spite of herself, pressing against him. He was warm and tall and strong and smelled of bourbon and laundry soap. He smelled so male, so wonderful. The years melted away. She remembered this. She remembered him, his touch, his embrace. He'd been hers once. Hers to hold, to kiss. To... to love. Not in the rings-and-forever way. But what they'd made was love, all the same. She felt his breathing catch, felt his cheek come down against her hair. His arms tightened around her, and she felt him swallow.

"Well," he said, "as long as you're okay." He was holding her really tightly now, rocking her a little, and God, did it give her flashbacks. She'd had this once, so long ago -- these arms, this body, this comfort. Any time she could grab some time and take it. It felt so good to have it again, even briefly. To feel him. His hand came up to the back of her head and she melted.

"I don't suppose..." she found she was muffling her words in the shoulder of his warmup suit and she found she wasn't willing to be mealy-mouthed about this. She stepped back, putting her hands on his shoulders, and his hands fell automatically to her hips. "I don't suppose I could interest you in a one-night stand for _auld lang syne_, could I."

She saw the flash of lust in his eyes. His color was up and she hadn't imagined the change in his breathing. She smiled. He still wanted her. That felt good.

"I, uh. Wow," he said.

"It's pretty crazy how the service brought us back together," she ventured. He hadn't said 'no' yet, had he....?

"Crazy's one word for it.... I... can't, Janet. I just-- It's...."

She patted him on the shoulder and then took her hands away. She ignored the cold seep of disappointment. "Hey, it's okay. When it's over, it's over." He didn't take his hands from her hips. It was wrong that she had let go and he hadn't. She wanted to step back, but instead she rested her hands on his forearms. He was so warm. It felt good to touch him.

He said, "It's not that. God.... It's...." He looked away, toward the living room, then met her eyes again. "Things have changed for me; that's all."

"I understand." She squeezed his arms and let go again, hoping he'd take the hint. He did. He released her, put one fist on his own hip and rubbed the back of his neck with the other hand. She stepped back. He looked genuinely uncomfortable, genuinely regretful.

"No, you don't," he was saying. "I just.... shit, this is probably the most reluctant I've ever been in turning down a proposition."

That puzzled her. She could understand water under the bridge, not wanting to try to re-create something that was over, years over. A decade over. But that's not what he was saying. She said, "It's not about the job."

"No, it's not about the job. Not in the way you mean." He stood there, hand on his nape, looking away.

"Because we survived breaking the regs before, and breaking a whole bunch more things than that." He knew all that. He'd been there. She'd been married when they'd gotten together before, but that was on her conscience, not his.

He sighed and met her eyes. He reached out, almost reluctantly, and cupped her jaw, thumbing it. It was all she could do not to close her eyes. "It's not about any of that. God; believe me. It's not about that."

"Well then," she said, firm and resigned and brisk. "You can't blame a girl for asking."

He smiled again -- boyish and charmed and so damnably irresistible. "No," he said. "Never."

He raised his eyebrows, asking permission again, telegraphing his step toward her, the raising of his arms. She let him hug her again. He tangled her hair around his fingers -- God, something else to make her flash back. She wished he hadn't done it. When he pulled back, slowly, as if it was hard to let go, she saw the kiss in his eyes, but he squared his shoulders, and let his hands drop away.

"Goodnight, Doc," he said softly. "Drive safe. Don't worry about Daniel."

She nodded, and she left. She got back in her car and drove home and masturbated before she went to sleep; thinking distractedly of Daniel's mouth and Jack's hands and the great ass of the new guy that was leading SG-5. And Cassie came home the next afternoon from her sleepover, irritable and exhausted, and they watched a movie and munched on microwave popcorn until Cassie fell asleep on the couch. Janet watched her fondly while she slumped, oblivious and boneless and sweet, as the movie blared on.

A few days later, Daniel, hands in his pockets, sauntered into the infirmary as she was working at her computer.

"Hey, Daniel. It's not often that I see you in here voluntarily," she teased. She was glad he'd come, glad he'd chosen to approach her. Maybe he'd done exactly as Jack had said he would: Put it behind him, and moved on. No awkwardness, no uncomfortable fallout. No need for the shield of formality.

He smiled. "This morning in our team briefing we were discussing the follow-up we're about to do with Tuplo's people and the Land of Light. And Loren's name came up."

She nodded, remembering. After Loren had been rescued from P4X-347, and detoxified from the effects of the Goa'ulds' addictive light device along with SG-1, it had been decided to relocate him to P3X-797. Washington felt it was not a good precedent to keep taking in orphans through the SGC. Thinking of that made Janet shiver; she felt luckier than ever to have Cassie. She suppressed the shiver and said, "We'd talked about continuing to monitor his health for a few more months."

"And thus," Daniel said.

"So, I'd better pack, I guess?"

"We'll go the day after tomorrow. Hopefully this is an off-world that will be nice and dull and boring. For once." His smile was rueful, but he met her eyes squarely.

"Oh I hope so," Janet said, fervently. Daniel, she was relieved to see, was still smiling as he turned away.

It was just herself and Colonel O'Neill and Daniel gating to the Land of Light, she discovered, when she reported to the embarkation room two days later at 1300 hours. Teal'c had pronounced himself available to babysit Cassie, but Janet had assumed Sam would be coming along to 979 too. Janet learned that morning that since it wasn't a first-contact mission, Sam had jumped at the chance to finish up some research she'd had to put off repeatedly, and was planning on joining Teal'c and Cassie for dinner.

In the Land of Light, they found Loren thriving. He'd grown several inches and made several good friends among the children in Tuplo's extended family. He was happy to see all three of them, especially Jack, but he'd clearly been able to move on emotionally and to create new ties on his adopted planet. He seemed ... healed. Janet, Jack and Daniel spent several pleasant hours with him and with Tuplo's entourage. A banquet was planned for that evening in their honor, and the three of them would spend the night, check on a settlement of former Touched in the morning, and then head back to the gate. It was summertime on 979, and late afternoon found them relaxing in the shade on the riverbank, down the slope from the palace, watching Loren run and play and splash with the other young people. Lessons had been suspended for the day in favor of celebrating the return of the Tau'ri.

An easy silence had fallen under their shade tree. The colonel had his cap over his eyes. Daniel sprawled next to him, watching the kids instead of reading the book he'd brought. Janet was thinking about Cassie, and how the cliche about the resilience of children was actually not a cliche at all, and how grateful she was for that.

Daniel put aside his book and rolled onto his stomach.

"Jack?" he said.

"Mm," Jack said from under his hat.

"Remember when Janet and I were trapped on PXR-919, and you said that I should go ahead and tell her?"

Jack abruptly pulled his cap away from his face, without sitting up, and turned just his head to look at Daniel. It was a moment before he replied. "Yeah," he said cautiously.

"Is that offer still in force?" Something in his voice made Janet sit up straight and look at Daniel closely. He looked thoughtful, but not upset.

"Yeah. Sure," Jack said, in the same cautious tone.

Daniel rolled to his side, so that he could easily meet Janet's eyes.

"At the time of the mission to 919," he began, speaking easily and yet somehow carefully, "Jack was thinking that it might make the situation there a little less awkward, make you feel a little less exposed, if you knew that he and I were together. The way I chose to handle it, though, I avoided telling you then. But I want you to know now. That he and I have been in a relationship for over a year. And that's why Jack refused you when you came over to his house shortly after that mission. Not because he doesn't care for you very much. But because he is with me."

Janet had to consciously pull her eyebrows down. Thankfully, she hadn't let her mouth drop open. She glanced at Jack again. He'd sat up and linked his arms around his knees, and he was watching her. When she caught his gaze, he shrugged, looking diffident but not at all embarrassed.

Daniel looked calm. As if he was simply waiting for her to respond.

She shook her head. She was stunned. Never in a million years... the two of them? Together? "This is certainly a surprise," she managed. She glanced at Jack, who was now looking warily from her to Daniel. "And ... my God, Daniel, that must have been awful for you -- essentially having to, to cheat? With the colonel right there? I mean, it was bad enough to have to have sex with someone you'd never thought of in that way, practically a stranger, but, my God."

"Well, I would hardly call you a stranger," Daniel said, and he smiled at her. "But it was definitely a bit disturbing. Besides the, you know, whole sex-or-freeze-to-death thing." Janet smiled in spite of herself. Jack had pulled up some grass from the blanket's edge and was tearing it into bits and tossing it away. Fidgeting. As always.

Janet took a deep breath, feeling her preconceptions tilting and sliding and crashing. It was a lot to take in. "I can only imagine," she said.

She looked at Jack. Subtle adjustments splintered through her previous perceptions of both of them, assumptions falling like dominoes about their team, their entire history going back to the first mission through the gate, the friendship between the two of them and their friendship with her. She frowned, thoroughly unsettled. She looked at Daniel. She'd known he and Jack were close friends, but now... The two of them, and her. More secrets here among the three of them than she'd ever realized. Then she wondered, sudden and sharp, if one of them had orchestrated this mission so that the three of them could finally talk.

She met Jack's eyes, and he seemed to read her mind. He said, "I told Daniel about us." And again she had to pull her eyebrows out of her hairline.

"Well isn't this a mess," she said, and pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes. "It would have been nice if you'd asked me first, Jack!"

"Yeah. I know." He was still shredding the grass, and tossing it. Methodically. "I just... I wanted him to know I was okay with what the two of you had to do."

"You want to tell her the rest?" Daniel said, confident and calm, and he looked at Jack, narrowing his eyes. Jack pursed his lips and exhaled.

Janet broke in, "Look, I confess I fail to see what bearing the relationship Jack and I had years ago has on this conversation, or how it's any of Daniel's business despite what he and I did on 919, but clearly there's been a lot going on here that I had no way of knowing about. If you had told me of your current relationship at the time, when Daniel and I were trapped, I'm not sure how it could have made a difference. I think we handled it as well as we could, but clearly there's a bunch of unresolved tension hanging over this now." She wanted to get up and pace. She made herself sit still.

"You could say that," Jack said, trying for light.

"At the very least, now I understand why you wouldn't get lost even though Daniel and I kept telling you to."

"For your information, I felt very left out. And worried," Jack said, neutrally, and Janet frowned. For all his boyish bounciness, for all his drama and intensity, she'd learned, through the years, to listen carefully when he talked in that deceptively calm tone. His fingers were still busy with the grass.

"Tell her," Daniel said. He was waiting, watching Jack intently.

Jack sighed. He turned to Janet. "When we got home, I told him how ... fond my memories of Germany were. How I always thought of you as, as--" and Jack looked away and winced -- "the one who got away.... I told him about how good it was to see you again when you got assigned to the program. I thought it would make him feel better about having been intimate with you. Knowing that."

Janet shook her head and turned to Daniel. "It was a long time ago, Daniel. It's water under the bridge."

"No, I think you're wrong there." Daniel's tone was thoughtful, and he was still looking at Jack, and he reached out and squeezed Jack's shoulder and then stroked, open handed, down Jack's arm. Jack looked at him then, and he looked conflicted and worried and somehow embarrassed. It was a look that said "busted."

Janet said, "Daniel, I'm serious. It really is water under the bridge -- so I hope that what happened between us isn't causing a, a rift between you and Jack, regardless of my history with Jack, because there's absolutely no--"

Daniel smiled and turned his palm to her, a gesture to stop. She subsided, reluctant.

He said, "I still look on Abydos as my adopted home; you both know that."

"Yes," Janet said, uncertainly. What did that have to do with anything?

"And on Abydos," Daniel went on, steadily, never taking his eyes off Jack, "their culture is very different from ours, in more ways than the obvious technological ones. Marriage is for family, for making children. Love-matches are fairly common, though, but they aren't a necessity. A lot of marriages are purely political. Of course, Sha're and I were definitely a love-match, but, different from most societies on Earth, on Abydos a form of polyamory is the norm. Same-sex relationships often begin before people are considered of age to marry and become responsible parents, and those relationships continue after marriage. They are considered perfectly acceptable and perfectly separate from the institution of the family. Some people are monogamous with their spouses. But," he turned to Janet, "monogamy is actually quite rare. Sha're and I were never monogamous. It just wasn't one of the rules."

Jack pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, a mirror of Janet's earlier gesture. Daniel glanced at him. Daniel continued, "That's the background. But that's where I'm coming from with what I want to tell you. Even though he knew all this, Jack still couldn't quite believe it when I figured out what was bothering him so much about you and me on 919. And I told him that he didn't need to be jealous or left out because of what you and I had to do; that if he still cared about you and wanted you, that that was fine with me." Daniel glanced over at Jack. "He still can't believe it, honestly. But he's been acting so ridiculous and hang-dog since then that I figured we'd better all get together and talk about this."

Janet said, thinking out loud, "And this is a safe place. No surveillance."

Daniel looked at her, nodding.

Her eyes were like saucers again. She tried to swallow. "I don't know what to say," she said.

"You don't have to say anything. You still care for Jack, Jack still cares for you, Jack cares about me, there's not a problem here." He turned to Jack and affectionately cuffed him. "Okay?"

Jack finally looked at Janet. He shook his head. She couldn't be sure, but she thought he was actually blushing. "Damn anthropologists," he said gruffly. She had to laugh. She shook her head and rubbed her temples. She could still hear the dominoes falling.

That night, after their long and exceedingly festive banquet, there was a knock at her door. She was sure it was Jack, without even looking. She'd been given a luxurious guest room in the palace, next door to the two men, and she had been padding around it since dinner, restless and barefoot, broody as a hen, as her mama would say, looking at the moonlit view of the river and the forest, and brushing her hair. What Daniel had offered them seemed outrageous. And so very appealing. She couldn't stop thinking about it. She didn't know what to do, what would be the right thing to do. She'd let Jack go, back in Germany, and dealt with her marriage and her guilt and her eventual ugly divorce, for which her traditional Catholic family still hadn't really forgiven her. And Jack had moved on, had eventually married someone else. So much water under the bridge, but what she knew, now, was that Jack never forgotten her, any more than she had him. It had been such a shock when he'd come back into her life, when she'd been assigned to the SGC. It was hard for her to imagine that Daniel would feel as open about his relationship with Jack as he apparently did. In his place, she wasn't sure she would. But he'd said it, and if the culture of Abydos had indeed taken that form, it made a certain kind of sense. She could, actually, believe it of him. Quite easily. She knew Daniel didn't say things lightly, or claim things he didn't believe. And now Jack was knocking. When she opened her door, her heart was pounding. Jack leaned a shoulder on the jamb and said, "Want to come over for a nightcap?"

"Um," Janet said. She realized she was blushing.

"Come on," Jack said, a corner of his mouth quirking, and turned. She put down her brush and followed. It was only a couple of steps to their door. Jack stood aside to let her precede him in. "Daniel brought coffee from home, or there's also some of that wine we had at dinner."

"Coffee sounds good; thank you," Janet said. Daniel smiled his greeting and poured for her into one of the handle-less mugs the people of this planet preferred. She took the cup and sat down on one of the big soft sofas in the living area of their room. She tried to slow her breathing and her heart. Jack was drinking the mild local wine, she noticed.

"It's good to see Loren doing so well," she said, into the electric silence, and so they talked about Loren for a while. Jack seemed restless, getting up from his own low sofa, opposite hers, to look out the tall windows and pace.

She watched Daniel settle deeper into his corner of the sofa as the discussion ranged away from Loren and his health and his future. Daniel warmed to enumerating the changes he had documented so far in the culture, as the former Touched continued to be re-integrated. Jack eventually wandered back and sat down beside Daniel, mostly looking at him, sipping wine. Daniel finished his coffee. Janet drank hers and listened and added her reminiscences as appropriate, and when her mug was empty, she set it down. When she looked up, they were both staring at her.

Daniel glanced at Jack, but spoke to Janet. "Would you like a refill?"

She made herself take a breath. "I should-- It's getting late." She stood up, restless, but realizing that really, she didn't want to leave.

Jack stood up, too. His expression was cautious, his eyes veiled. "You don't have to go. You could stay. With us. If you still want to."

Janet glanced at Daniel. He was looking at Jack, fondly. He was smiling.

Janet stuttered, "That's... that's... so... generous? Um." Daniel leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, waiting to hear what she would say.

Jack took a step closer to her and said, "I meant it when I told you it was hard; turning down that proposition."

"I seem to be quite thoroughly speechless...." She laughed; a nervous sound. "I really don't think I'd know how."

"To be part of an orgy?" Daniel said, and a corner of his mouth turned up. "I think you just do what comes naturally." He stood up and went to Jack, putting his hands on Jack's shoulders. Jack pulled in a big breath and put one of his hands on Daniel's wrist. The affection and lust that sparkled between them was so obvious and so vivid. Seeing it put a twist in Janet's stomach, trapping her between envy and arousal. But they were serious. Which meant there was no need for envy.

Mama would never understand this. Not in a million years. But that didn't matter. Not here, not now. Not with them. Janet took a deep breath and closed the distance.

"Jack," she said, and when he turned his head, she lifted her hands to his face and pulled him down and kissed him for the first time since Germany.

The moon didn't fall out of the sky. But it definitely teetered.

"Yes," Janet said when the kiss ended, leaving him to figure out what question she was responding to. He was warm and tall and smelled of spices and red wine and soap. Daniel's arms came around them both, sending warmth rushing along her spine and down her legs.

Jack pulled her against him and pressed a kiss into her hair.

"Hey," he said. She opened her eyes, and let him angle her face up. He needed her eyes. He'd always needed to see, she remembered. Always checked in, never took his welcome, or her consent, for granted. She groped for Daniel's shoulder as Jack bent and kissed her again, so gently. His lips were soft, and so so warm.

"Oh, God," she said, when the kiss stopped.

"Not jealous any more?" Daniel murmured to Jack, a smile in his voice.

"That would be a 'no,' " Jack said, and kissed Janet again.

A comfortable glow spread along her skin. Daniel's shoulder was a warm anchor. Jack kissed her, and she kissed back and let him rediscover all the things he'd enjoyed about her mouth, so long ago. His kisses were careful and deep, and soon she was swept up, warm all over, drinking him in. She realized she'd let go of Daniel, or he'd let go of her, and both her arms were around Jack. She was cupping the back of his head, holding on fiercely. They were both breathing hard. The kissing slowed, and she opened her eyes.

"Just as good as I remember," Jack said.

"Oh yeah," she answered, "Definitely."

Daniel said, "Guys? Why are we still standing up?"

And Jack chuckled and said, "Good question," and he stepped back and tugged on Janet's hand. He backed up to the sofa, Daniel still beside them, and sat down. She put her hand on Jack's shoulder and brought up one knee, sliding across his lap. She cupped his jaw with both hands and brought their mouths together again. The position made them nearly even in height, and she took control of the kiss, exploring in her turn, not hurrying. Jack sank back against the sofa cushions, and she sank into him. His hands moved warmly against her hips, and as the kisses went on she felt them moving up, in careful circles, until he had a hand over each breast. It felt wonderful.

After a while, he pulled his mouth away and leaned his forehead against hers. She licked her lips and waited, astonished and aroused and much, much less worried than she had expected about doing this with an audience.

"You doin' okay over there, Daniel?" Jack asked. His eyes were closed.

"Enjoying the view very much," Daniel said. His voice was warm and amused, with an intense undertone she'd never heard before. She looked. God, he was handsome, as always, of course, but being interested and turned-on made him even more handsome. Movie-star handsome. He was slumped in the corner of their sofa, one knee bent up against the cushions and one foot on the floor, and he was sipping Jack's wine. His erection was plain, pushing at the front of his BDU pants.

"Just checking," Jack said. And he brought his mouth up and nipped at Janet's jaw, then under it, along her neck. It made her moan. He squeezed gently at her breasts, and her moan caught and reformed. His hands went to the hem of her T-shirt. "Is this all right?" he asked, his lips against her neck.

"Yes; I want you to," she managed to say. Everywhere his mouth touched her, it was as if her skin was catching fire.

He pulled the shirt up slowly, as if waiting warily for her to stop him, and tugged it over her head. Her hair fell messily back around her shoulders. He let her shirt fall. Right away his palms and fingers smoothed over her breasts again, and he leaned back so that he could see what he was touching.

"Mm," Jack said. She laughed, not nervous at all now, pleased and warmed and so glad she hadn't talked herself out of this. She knew his mouth; she knew his touch. It was Jack, same old Jack. And Daniel didn't mind; Daniel wanted this for Jack. It would all be all right, somehow. It was already so, so good. Jack caressed her, through the heavy cotton bra and around it, rubbing at one nipple with his thumb while his other hand petted along her ribs, along her back and up over her shoulders. He touched, and looked, and she kissed him whenever he glanced up.

"Okay, this is a democracy, right?" he said. "I vote we take this to bed."

"I thought you'd never ask," Janet joked, licking her lips. Daniel was already up, and moving to stand close beside her. He put one hand on her shoulder, and held out the other, and she leaned on his hand as she pulled her legs down away from Jack's thighs, and stood. He slid his arm around her shoulders as she leaned in. Her knees were a little weak.

She and Daniel stepped aside, out of Jack's way, and Daniel steered her across the room to the big bed. Daniel let go of her at the foot, and moved around the room, dimming the lights. Jack arrived behind her. His hands on her shoulders were what she felt first, and he slid them down her arms and his mouth settled on the side of her neck as he reached for the button of her uniform slacks. She leaned back, pressing against him.

"Aw, baby," he said, a pleased note in his voice, and he was following her slacks to the floor, kneeling as he pushed them down. She swayed a little -- her knees felt as if they might melt at any moment -- and managed to stay upright.

Daniel, she noticed, had come back to the bed in the now-dim light, and had quickly peeled himself out of all his clothes and turned down the blankets. She went quiet a moment at what she recognized, standing there under Jack's hands. Daniel was comfortable now. He was comfortable in undressing, in showing her his body, in doing this. Comfortable in a way he so clearly had not been on 919. Easy and relaxed. And simply seeing it was already transforming that experience in Janet's memories, backgrounding the awkwardness and embarrassment, allowing only the good memories, the sensual memories, to have impact now. Memories like the way his mouth on hers had felt, the way the dim light in that offworld trap had shown her his pale skin, his exposed thighs. She took a long ragged breath and looked at him afresh, looked, as he was inviting both of them to, both her and Jack -- looked as he turned and settled on the bed, looked at the line of his thigh, the curve of his buttocks, the fact that he was half hard. When he was reclining naked against the pillows and headboard, he noticed her watching, and he smiled at her.

Then he put his hand on his penis, just touching, not squeezing or jerking, just resting it there, and his eyes shifted down -- to Jack's hands, running over cotton.

Jack had helped her step out of her slacks, exposing her plain cotton underpants, and he kissed along their waistband, just one line of intermittent fire under the twin dimples of her lower back, and then he stood. She turned to him, already feeling cold where he wasn't touching her any more. He'd shed his slacks, and he was stripping out of his T-shirt. He was quick. She slid her hands along his stomach. He watched her, his smile gone Mona Lisa, but his eyes were bright and interested and happy. His belly was warm and tight under her curious hands -- this much, despite the years, she remembered so very well -- a little furry, muscled and flat, and not, if memory served, at all ticklish. He let his shirt fall to the floor as she pushed down his briefs. He was fully hard, and she left one arm around his waist and gently cupped his erection, getting reacquainted by touch, as he moaned his approval and kicked his feet free of his underwear. She lifted her face, and Jack kissed her. The skin of his penis slid smoothly under her fingertips, the shaft heavy and warm. She shivered, reveling in touching him, feeling him again.

He broke the kiss very soon to murmur, "It's way past my bedtime, Fraiser. I think I might need to lie down." She smiled and squeezed him gently and let go. The bed was right there, so she put a knee on it, Jack's hand falling to her hip, still petting, and she eased herself up to Daniel. Who was still smiling at her, still touching himself, as she put a hand on his leg. Jack was right behind her.

She said, suddenly self-conscious again, "I don't have to be in the middle; maybe Jack would rather... so you can reach him? Or ..." she interrupted herself to laugh. She hadn't been kidding about not knowing the first thing about attending an orgy. They laughed, too, but it was all warmth and no mockery. "Like I said. No experience with this. So, ah, the logistics are a little overwhelming."

Daniel put his hand on her shoulder, and then let it skim down along the curve of her breast, then traced his fingertips along her bra strap, bringing up goosebumps.

He said, "There's no agenda. I think whatever happens, it will work out fine." And Daniel leaned in and kissed her, brief and warm. It was overwhelming, to be bracketed by both of them, lined up between all that flesh and muscle. Overwhelming in a good way, a way that made her feel hugged and very thoroughly touched. She'd missed this. Missed skin and warmth and happy sex. And God, how wonderful was it -- so damn _friendly._ Jack was pressing against her back, his erection nudging at her thigh, and his arm came around her waist.

Jack said, "Hey, we're logistical professionals. We've got the chops to improvise," and that made her laugh again. He trailed kisses along her shoulder and collar bone, and she snuggled back against him, just feeling him, his chest and abs against her back, the way his arm held her so easily. Her eyes wanted to close. Her arousal was spreading, pushing against her skin. She felt like a kettle about to boil -- heated from the inside, already full. Daniel was still resting his hand against her breast, just holding it softly now, not squeezing or rubbing.

She put her hand over Daniel's. He was right; they probably wouldn't have to say too much -- and so much had already been conveyed, without words. They were all already so surprisingly comfortable, but she still felt she should say something. "If we need to talk about what we're doing, that's fine with me. If this is just something you're present for, Daniel, and you don't really prefer to touch me, or if certain things are off limits in bed, I understand. I'm just--"

"Hey," Jack said, and it was a very quiet and polite interruption, but it was definitely a bid for her attention. She craned around, to meet his eyes over her shoulder, and he leaned in and kissed her.

It was the most aggressive he'd been so far. It made her expanding arousal erupt, like a fire when gasoline gets splashed in it, and all that new heat seemed to fuse her skin to his, all along the whole length of chest and stomach where they touched. He kissed her, opening her mouth gently but insistently with his tongue, and she moaned and softened and went with it. He turned her, pressing her against Daniel's side with his chest, pressing her down. He pushed his erection against her thigh, once, twice, and she felt his hand smooth down her side and back. When his hand arrived on Daniel's erection -- she felt it through Daniel's side -- Daniel arched into Jack's touch, moving against her. They all moaned then, and laughed at their own reactions. Her head fell back against Daniel's shoulder.

Jack lifted his head and said, "Yeah, I'm getting way too spoiled here. It's gonna go right to my head." He kissed her again, still reaching past her to touch Daniel. She moved, too, moved against him, pressing up with hips still wrapped in cotton, enjoying the way the fabric stretched and rubbed between her legs as she moved. Daniel shifted a little, and Jack held her as he did, holding her up so Daniel could get an arm free. He caressed Jack's face as their kiss went on. It was intense, more intense than anything she remembered doing before -- the combined presence of three people in the bed, three people involved in this private, intimate thing. She held tight to Jack, and let him press her against Daniel, and kissed him.

After a while, Jack pulled his mouth from hers and dragged it down her jaw, then down her neck, making her twitch toward him with each kiss. He must have remembered what a hot spot that was for her, because she could feel him smile against her skin. Jack shifted to lean on his elbow, bending a leg, and let his kisses track lower and lower until he was kissing along the top line of her bra, and she moaned again and clutched at him as he switched to gently biting her, letting his mouth drift lower, letting her feel teeth through the thick cotton. He shifted his weight and took the heavy elastic in both hands, and she arched her back away from Daniel, and Jack lifted and tugged and pulled the bra over her head. She leaned against Daniel again as he tossed it over his shoulder, like a movie comedian. She smiled and shook her head, happy and amazed and hotter than she ever remembered being. Jack kissed her cheek and bent his head and put his tongue to her nipple. She stiffened and closed her eyes and groped back for Daniel's hand.

Jack made a pleased murmur, which she couldn't help but echo, and stayed there, sucking and nuzzling and gently biting, his free hand covering her other nipple, until her panties were soaked and she'd anchored herself with one hand on Daniel's thigh, squeezing and arching and moaning.

Jack stopped teasing her nipple, and he got to his knees, mouth wet. His erection jutted out, red and a little wet at the tip. Janet licked her lips. Jack began to lean in again, but stopped himself immediately to watch, because now Daniel's hands were moving, along her ribs, over her breasts. She gasped, head falling back, her eyes falling closed, because she truly had not expected that. She'd expected Daniel to watch them, if he did anything at all, and she'd been half preparing, in the back of her mind, to excuse herself after spending some time with Jack tonight, to get out of their bed and go back to her own. She hadn't expected Daniel to want to touch her. If he was enjoying it -- maybe he was doing it for Jack -- but her thoughts were self-destructing, as if her brain had been caught in a lightning storm, because of the overwhelming surprise of Daniel's hands. He rubbed, gently, flat-palmed, covering the entire front of her breasts, and then, slowly, he focused in -- lazy, tight circles -- on both nipples, rubbing a little harder, making her moan and clutch at Jack, and when Daniel pinched both nipples simultaneously she groaned, loud and hoarse and uncontrolled, and her hips would have come off the bed if Jack hadn't been holding her.

She was panting hard, and she was so wet. Jack leaned down and kissed each nipple through Daniel's fingers, licking around them, intense and wet, and then she had to let her head fall back and her hands fall open, unable to grip anything any more, because Jack was peeling down her panties. He lifted his mouth away from her nipple and brought it down to kiss her gently, firmly -- once at her navel, once in her curls. And she lay there, already boneless and on the point of coming, as he pulled the panties down over her feet, and pushed her legs apart.

When he pressed his soft, open mouth against her and gave her his tongue, one firm swipe from down to up, she jerked and cried out and came.

Daniel's hands flattened on her breasts. He and Jack were both still, touching her but waiting it out, not moving away and not pushing her beyond orgasmic to an intolerable pinnacle of over-sensation, as her body lifted and spasmed through an intense wave of release. Then Jack gripped her hips, and without changing what he did with his lips, still pressing them against her, he licked her again, one more firm long stroke. It was more than enough to set off a second wave.

"Oh, God," Janet groaned. "Jack... Daniel..." The second storm of orgasm crested and started to ebb. Jack closed his mouth, nuzzling her with the soft press of his lips, and tightened his grip on her hips. Daniel hugged her, an upside down backwards hug, just his hands and forearms, crossing them over her breasts, his fingers on her ribcage. Aftershocks rolled through her. "Oh my God!"

She panted, scrabbling for a grip on them, wanting to cry, wanting to laugh. The world tilted. She lay there, clinging, floating on the waves of pleasure as they ebbed. She tried to swallow, couldn't. "God," she said again, and felt Daniel sigh.

"Mm," Jack said against her, his face still between her legs, and the vibration made her laugh and made all her muscles clench again, not really an aftershock -- it was too voluntary for that. It was delicious. He pulled back enough to kiss between her legs again, just once, and she jerked and twitched and watched as he pulled up and leaned and kissed Daniel with the taste of her all over his mouth. Then she had to move. She had to see it. She hitched herself up in the bed beside Daniel until she could.

Watching lovers kiss was something she'd never done. She'd watched her share of porn here and there through the years, but the reality was unbelievably different. So far beyond the impact of those artificial videos. She lost track of herself, of her own reactions, caught up in seeing them.

They both had their eyes closed, and Jack had thrown his arm around Daniel's neck. They seemed to be tasting, to be eagerly exploring, more than sealing their mouths together, or creating that deep sucking that Janet knew Jack, at least, was so good at. The kiss had a lot of motion in it, a lot of back and forth of tongues, lips clinging and resting and resettling. It was like twenty kisses rolled into one, twenty deep kisses that never stopped and never let up. And she couldn't say that one or the other of them was in charge, was the aggressor. They shared it all, the giving and the taking. They were beautiful.

Without realizing it, she'd brought her legs together, rubbing her way through an intense afterglow, and her knees were leaning against Daniel now and she'd reached out to both of them, petting and caressing. She felt warm and so perfectly, completely relaxed.

They finally eased apart, looking into each other's eyes, Daniel smug, Jack ... _grateful_ was the only word she could put to the expression. She grinned and shook her head. Crazy. Crazy in the good way, the best possible way.

Daniel glanced at her, then back to Jack, smiling. "Can it please be my turn now?"

Jack reached for Janet, still looking at Daniel, and she leaned up, on her elbow and then on his chest, and he brought her close. "For you, anything," Jack said to Daniel. "Especially now."

Daniel leaned back on his pillows, scrunching down as he did so that he was lying nearly flat, and he beckoned to Jack and said, "C'mere," in that low purring voice that Janet had heard earlier when he was sitting in the corner of the sofa, watching Jack touch her. Jack look surprised. He glanced at Janet. Into his apparent hesitation, Daniel said, "Unless you don't wanna," and Jack said, "No, I thought you meant--" and Daniel made a huffing noise that sounded impatient and dismissive.

Whatever they'd conveyed by that exchange seemed to settle things, because Jack kissed Janet again -- she was still a mostly boneless blur of post-orgasmic wonder -- and then untangled himself from her and carefully climbed over Daniel to kneel, straddling Daniel's chest.

"Oh my," Janet said, when she figured out what was about to happen, and she eased closer, touching them both, stretching out her legs, tucking her feet under the blankets at the bed's foot. She didn't want to lose contact with their skin. Daniel had his hands on Jack's thighs, and she put one hand over one of his. He grinned at her, and then Jack was easing down, easing his harder-than-ever erection between Daniel's waiting lips.

"Oh, God," Janet said again.

Daniel closed his eyes, and it was, again, so gorgeous and so hot, to watch this. Clearly, this position was one they'd used many times before. Jack settled carefully, but comfortably, some of his weight on Daniel, most of it held taut, his abs and buttocks tight, and he waited for Daniel to carefully arrange his mouth, find the right angle for his neck, and then Jack eased down and forward, pushing his cock into Daniel's mouth, all the way in. Janet bit her lip. And then Jack eased back again, his shaft emerging only as far as the lip of the glans (Janet could see how Daniel's lips formed around it), then pulling back to push in again, slowly, deeply.

Jack groaned, low and appreciative, and Daniel, eyes closed, presumably lost in the sensation, smiled with just the corners of his eyes, keeping his mouth sealed around Jack.

It was shocking. It was tender and hot and careful and incredibly arousing. Janet glanced up at Jack. His hands were quiet on his thighs. His eyes were closed, his face tilted up, his expression utterly inward. Yeah, they'd done this before. He must have felt her gaze, because he opened his eyes and looked her way. His usual sharp regard was fogged over with pleasure, and he reached out and let his knuckles trail along her cheek. She put her hand to his. He took a deep breath and drew his hand away and let it rest on his leg again. Daniel, for his part, was lying calm and still, his hands comfortably resting just below Jack's on Jack's thighs, the creamy expanse of him stretched out, at rest except for his very alert erection. So different from Jack, and just as much a feast for the eyes.

"Why Daniel, you show-off," Janet had to say, and that almost -- almost -- made him smile. The crinkles around his eyes deepened, but he kept his composure, kept his focus, as Jack grunted, midway between arousal and laughter, and pushed into his throat again.

Janet watched, transfixed, for a couple more slow thrusts of Jack's hips, and then she realized something.

"Daniel," she said, softly, tenderly. "I want to touch you. While you do this. Can I?" she asked, and when he lifted his nearer hand from Jack and reached for her, she took his hand and he squeezed. So she sat up, rearranging her legs to get her balance, and gently slid her free hand along his thigh and took his cock in her fist, watching his face the whole time.

His expression didn't change, but he groaned around Jack. She smiled. She watched him carefully as she set up a slow, easy stroke -- nothing fancy, nothing twisty. Just all the way down and all the way up, giving a slight squeeze to his leaking head, using the pre-ejaculate she found there to make the strokes slick. It wasn't long before she had matched up her hand with Jack's movements, which made her smile again, and hold her breath.

And it wasn't long after that that Jack reached out, finding her shoulder unerringly, and he squeezed her hard and bit off a groan and went very still. She could feel the thrumming tenseness in his entire body.

Daniel's eyes squeezed more tightly shut, and his throat muscles moved. He was swallowing. Jack was coming, silent and intent, right down his throat, and Daniel was swallowing it. Janet found she was panting, her breaths synched to Jack's, and then suddenly Daniel erupted through her still moving fingers, coming in slow intense pulses over her hand, white ribbons of semen running down and pooling on his stomach. Janet, guessing at what he might want now, tightened her hand just a little and moved it up and over to cup the head, and then she waited, listening and poised and so turned on, and yet so entirely satisfied. Her skin was hot. She felt more awake than she'd ever been away from a battlefield or a surgical suite.

She'd guessed right. Daniel had gone taut as he began to come; now he relaxed. The spurts under her fingers tailed off. Jack's head sagged, his chin coming nearly to his chest. Daniel squeezed her hand again. Jack groaned and slowly, carefully, pulled out of Daniel's mouth. He was still hard. His penis was red, and wet with semen and Daniel's saliva. Janet made an indefinable sound; not really a groan, but a moany stifled cry of wonder and arousal.

"Fuck," Jack groaned, and unfolded his legs and sank, joint by joint, to the bed on the far side of Daniel. Daniel still had her hand. Jack, she could see, had taken his other one. He laced their fingers together as he leaned over, kissing Daniel again, pulling back to smile at him and look into his eyes, and then kissing some more. He pulled on Daniel's hand, getting Daniel's arm under his neck as he lay down on his side, snuggling in close. He looked at Janet, and his expression was pure mischief. _"You see how it is,"_ his brown eyes said, and he put his palm on Daniel's chest and rubbed a small circle.

"Well. That went well," Daniel said, and cleared his throat.

Janet unfolded herself and let go, carefully, of Daniel's penis, and crept up to put her head on Daniel's other shoulder. She exhaled, careful and long, and felt tears prick her eyelids. She was so full, full of simple happiness. Of affection for these two men.

"Yeah, you were definitely showing off a little, Danny," Jack was saying. "I gotta say you outdid yourself there."

"I was inspired," Daniel murmured, his voice clogged and sleepy and satisfied, pulling his arm up around Janet's shoulders. She glanced down. Jack had covered Daniel's dick with his hand; just cupping it. He might have, as she had just done, taken a swipe at the come and wiped it on the sheets.

Janet turned to her side and snuggled closer.

"I still -- some part of me really can't quite believe this is happening," Janet murmured, pressing all the skin she could against Daniel, sliding her knee over his thigh. He sighed his contentment.

"Mm," Jack said, reaching out to run a lazy heavy hand down her spine. When he got to the curve of her buttocks, she purred. He swatted her, once, lightly, making her chuckle, and then pulled back to settle at Daniel's side again. "When the going gets weird," he quoted, "the weird turn pro."

Daniel's sleepy burst of laughter, rumbling out of his chest, was beautiful to hear, and when he shifted to whack Jack in the chest with the back of his hand, it hardly dislodged Janet's head from his shoulder at all.

^^^^

_true, i've been seen with someone new  
that doesn't mean that i've been untrue  
though we're apart, these words in my heart  
reveal how i feel about you_

some kiss may cloud my memory  
and other arms may hold a thrill  
but please do nothing 'til you hear it from me  
and you never will

\-- "Do Nothing 'Til You Hear From Me"   
by Duke Ellington and Bob Russell


End file.
